Afficere
by anathemaybe
Summary: After turning Jowan in to Irving, Solona feels isolated. Cullen decides to do something about it. Prequel to Venefica.


It had been a week since the Jowan debacle, and Cullen hadn't seen Solona smile once in that time. The other mages had taken to shunning her – either because she'd told on a fellow mage or she'd been consorting with a maleficar, depending on the person. Greagoir was still furious with her. It was only Irving's intervention that had kept her from Aeonar.

Cullen felt a little guilty for that part. True, Greagoir would've been just as angry if it had been any other mage, but he might not have tried as hard to punish her if she hadn't been the one Cullen was infatuated with. Though Greagoir hadn't said anything to Cullen specifically to tell Cullen that he knew, the Knight Commander made it clear there was a reason Cullen had been picked as the templar to strike the killing blow at her Harrowing.

In lieu of having anyone to spend her time with, Solona threw herself into her studies. Generally mages would spend their time with a senior enchanter and focus on a single spell tree, but Solona had divided her time evenly between Spirit Healing – made all the more difficult to study for the fact that Wynne had yet to arrive back from Ostagar – and Spirit magic, which she was scarily good at.

Since his stammering refusal to speak to Solona in private on the day of her Harrowing, she hadn't tried to speak to him again, but he realized very soon that she'd rearranged her schedules around his patrols. She would, without fail, be waiting for him in the same spot of the library every day. After a week of this, and the rare opportunity of having the library alone, Cullen decided enough was enough. Fortune favored the bold, after all, and he was really the closest thing she had to a friend in this tower.

"Hello," Cullen said, and he watched her look up from her book in surprise.

"Hi," replied Solona, looking back down at her lap. "So, are you speaking to me?"

"O-of course," Cullen managed, wondering how in the world she got the impression he didn't want to speak to her and then feeling like an idiot at he realized he'd never actually told her his feelings, so what was she supposed to think?

"Thank you," she said, copying a passage from a book onto a spare piece of vellum. "No one else will. Talk to me, that is. Between helping Jowan escape and having told on him to Irving…." Solona trailed off, her quill motionless. "Did I do the right thing, Cullen?"

"Yes," he told her, not convinced she had but unwilling to give the little mage any more guilt. "You didn't know Jowan was a blood mage, did you?"

"Maker, no!" she exclaimed, finally meeting his eyes. He realized she was on the verge of tears and it felt like he'd been hit. "I thought they were going to make him tranquil because he was such a poor mage, I would never…" Solona trailed off, burying her face in her hands. "I'm sorry," she said, voice muffled, "You must think I'm an idiot."

"I don't," he said, watching her and wanting to do something to help. Solona looked up at him, eyes still shining with tears, but she looked at least marginally less miserable than before. "Solona…"

Cullen wasn't certain what possessed him; in retrospect, it must have been a combination of the empty, moonlit library, and Solona's palpable loneliness, but he gently bent down to kiss her, realizing half a second after he pressed his lips to hers that he had no idea what he was doing and Solona was probably going to laugh at him. He pulled away, looking at her, an apology already half-spilling from his lips when she stood.

Solona slipped a hand into his hair, running her fingers through his curls, and brought his face back down to hers, kissing him lightly. She, he thought rather deliriously, was far better at this than he was. Cullen's hands found their way to her hips and he pulled her closer, absolutely terrified they'd be caught but unable to bring himself to stop.

Finally Solona pulled away from him, shyly smiling. He was a reckless _idiot_, he didn't even want to begin to think about what it'd mean if they were caught, but he couldn't help but feel like it was worth it to see her smile again.

"So…" she said, and he couldn't stop staring at the way she bit her lip. "What does this mean?"

"I don't know," replied Cullen, arms still around her waist, half-closing his eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"I've been wanting to do that since I met you," she confessed quietly, and Cullen kissed her again, because she was there, and he could, and he might not get the courage to do it again. "We…"

Whatever Solona had wanted to say interrupted by the sound of footsteps down the hall - the two jumped apart, both blushing brightly as Solona turned back to her books and Cullen to his post. Thirty seconds later Senior Enchanter Sweeney stuck his head into the library, squinting at Solona to make certain it was her.

"You're still up, Amell? Off to bed with you, girl, we've got work to do in the morning," he scolded, and Solona nodded, too shy to look at Cullen as she packed her things away and headed out of the library.

Despite a small part of him being convinced this wouldn't end well, Cullen couldn't help but smile.


End file.
